Cindy Montañez

Cindy Montanez (born 1974) was a Democratic Assemblywoman from California's 39th Assembly District from 2002 until 2006. Montanez stepped down in 2006 to run for the California's 20th State Senate District. However, she lost that primary to Los Angeles City Councilman Alex Padilla. After leaving the Assembly, Montanez was appointed to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.

Pre Assembly Life

Montanez was raised in the city of San Fernando, CA along with her five siblings by parents who were immigrants from Mexico. She attended but did not graduate from University of California, Los Angeles.

Assembly Tenure

In February 2004, Montanez was named the chairperson of the Assembly Rules Committee. At 30 years old, she was the youngest person to ever chair the powerful committee as well as the first Latina and the first Democratic woman to chair the committee.

Her legislative work focused on issues that were vital to her district which was and is working class in nature. Specific focuses included education, the environment, health care and consumer/worker protection. During her first term, ten of her bills made it out of the legislature and were signed into law. These bills included statutes to improve the management of urban landfills, a law to protect children from a sexually abusive parent and laws to insure the safety of temporary construction workers.